Transcript: Can Babies Read Your Mind? The Truth About Communicating With Infants
This is a text transcript from The First Time Mum’s Chat podcast. The episode is called Can Babies Read Your Mind? The Truth About Communicating With Infants and you can click on the link to view the full episode page, listen to the episode and view the show notes.
Helen Thompson: Hi, and welcome to First Time Mum’s Chat. I’m Helen Thompson, your host, and a qualified child care educator and baby massage instructor with over 20 years of experience. If you’re a mum just starting your parenting journey, this podcast is here to help you navigate the joys and challenges of those early days with your little one.
Today’s episode is one you won’t want to miss. Have you ever wondered if babies are trying to tell us something beyond their cries? Or what they might be experiencing during pregnancy, birth, and those first moments of life?
My guest, Lauren Dionysus, a former NICU nurse, turned baby soul communicator, has cared for over 7, 000 babies and discovered incredible insights about how they communicate in ways we often overlook.
Lauren will share how babies communicate through energy, why understanding their cues goes far beyond hunger and tiredness, and the fascinating idea that babies choose their parents and life paths. If you’ve ever asked yourself, am I really connected with my baby or how can I better support my baby’s unique journey, then this episode is for you.
So grab a cuppa and get comfy and let’s dive into this eye opening conversation with Lauren. You’re about to gain new tools to help you truly connect with your baby in ways you may never have imagined.
Hi Lauren, and welcome to First Time Mum’s Chat. I’m absolutely thrilled to have you on the show today. I can’t wait for you to share your incredible insights into understanding babies on a deeper level. I know my listeners will be fascinated by your perspective, so let’s dive in.
Lauren Dionysius: Thank you, Helen. It’s great to be here.
Helen Thompson: Can you start by telling us about yourself, your background and your journey?
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah, for sure. I’d always wanted to be a nurse and look after the babies. That’s a dream I had as a very young child and yeah, when I was in my early twenties, I transitioned from general nursing into the nursery and I stayed in the nursery then pretty much for the next 17 or 18 years until I left the hospital system about 3, 4 years ago now.
So yeah, it was a journey for me that is very challenging at times, working in a neonatal ICU, which is where I spent the majority of my career. It was very emotionally demanding, physically demanding but it also helped me to understand babies very deeply. I cared for over 7, 000 of them during my nursing career. So I learnt to really understand their subtleties and the little changes in their energy, in their movements, in how they communicated. So it was through that exposure that, yeah, I started, being more curious, I guess, about their journey through their perspective, rather than us looking at them as these little clueless human beings that don’t remember, which is what I was taught through my university training.
What I realized is that these little people are very wise, they understand a lot more than what we give them credit for, and they do remember. So that started me on a journey to explore that more and to understand the babies I was caring for in a much deeper way. Then when I left the hospital, that expanded not only with newborns, but then, starting preconception and pregnancy and then older children as well.
So yeah, that’s my journey in a nutshell was just this curiosity about this little people and not just what we’re here to teach them, but what they’re actually here to teach us.
Helen Thompson: Yeah, it’s really interesting you say that. My career started working in the childcare industry. I had a similar experience to you. I began to understand more about communication and why it’s so important to communicate to kids because it’s their way of communicating, whether they’re a baby or a child, they still communicate through different cues and different ways of doing things and because I come from a baby massage background, I totally get what you say about the baby communication and their cues because, and it’s more than just non verbal and it’s more than just verbal communication, it’s more than just babies crying for being hungry.
We all know that babies cry when they’re hungry, when they’re tired because it’s their way of communicating. What I wanted to ask you is, in your experience, how do babies communicate their needs and emotions beyond those traditional cues like crying because they’re hungry. What’s your experience in that from what you’ve just said?
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah. In my experience, they communicate through energy. That’s their primary mode, but it’s the same for all of us. It’s just that as adults we have more, tools in our toolbox because we’re learning and growing and getting used to the earth more. So yeah, I always bring it back to energy and then we start to explore, okay, what does baby’s energy look like what parts of their energy, or if you want to go into things like their energy field and their aura, where is that at as a newborn and how does that change then as they grow?
Also babies in my experience, and I know this may sound a little bit out there, but babies communicate, yes, they communicate through their movement as well. They move a lot of energy through their energy field, but what I learnt and trust me, I thought I was going crazy, but babies communicate very well through their thoughts as well.
So babies are very intuitive, they’re very telepathic as well, which, if you can stretch your mind out to, before we came to the earth, I do believe that we all have a soul and that that soul lives in spirit and then it comes to the earth and the way souls communicate, which is something that I’ve learned and what the babies have taught me, is they communicate through thought or through telepathy.
So babies, especially when they’re new to the earth, that skill for them is very much intact. Or is it something that generally we as humans, as we get older, we lose that ability and we need to retrain ourselves or remember that as we get older. So when you can train yourself and I believe everyone can do this to be able to understand a baby’s energy, be able to read their energy and also to be able to hear them and feel them, then you can gain so much more insight into what just like they’re crying or their movement, or, any of these more non verbal cues that we can learn to read as well.
Helen Thompson: Yeah you mentioned telepathic. I do a lot of touch and communicating with babies through touch. So would you relate what you’ve just said to touch and telepathic ways as well? I think touch is really important as well. You talked about energy. Energy also comes into touch because if you don’t want to be touched as an adult, but even a baby, if they don’t want to be touched, they’ll let you know.
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah, well the way that I teach women to support their baby once they land on the earth is three ways. One is through touch, one is through talk and the other is through thought. So touch, talk, and thought is my framework, that I’ve come to understand babies through. The touch side of things is exactly what you’ve been speaking about. Baby massage, and that can be amazing for babies, but as you’ve also said, sometimes it’s not what they want. Like us, sometimes we want to be hugged, sometimes we don’t want to be hugged, touch, not touch, all of these things. There’s other ways around touch as well, which can be as simple as and this goes into talk a little bit as well, explaining when we are touching babies, whether that’s a nappy change, a bath, anything where we’re moving them or even picking them up out of their cot or putting them into their cot. The way it helps me to understand them better is to imagine me in their position. If someone came up to me and suddenly started taking my pants off and changing my nappy, that would feel very invasive for me.
If somebody
Helen Thompson: yeah.
Lauren Dionysius: picked me up by the armpits and moved me from my bed to a lap or to the bathtub or something like that, then I would feel very ,shocked if I didn’t know that that was coming. If someone said to me, oh, it’s time for a bath I’m just going to move you from here to here, or I’m going to, start taking your clothes off now so I can put you in the bathtub and give you a little wash, then that would be a lot less jarring to my nervous system. So I always try to put myself in their position and what would I like someone to do for me or to me or to manage that if I was a baby who couldn’t say, hey, I want to sleep more or I don’t want a bath or, what are you doing? So I always put myself into that and how would that feel? So that’s the touch and the talk side where you’re explaining to them, you’re talking to them, not about them.
This is something I saw a lot of in the hospital when caring for critically unwell babies, we would be talking about them, we’d be around their cot or their humidicrib and we’d be talking about them, we wouldn’t be talking to them. So that was a conscious effort that I made as a clinician, as a nurse, was to talk to them, explain what I was doing, explain what was going on, explain what was being said, because they understand a lot more than what we give them credit for.
So, the other side of talking to them though, is we need to listen as well. We can talk all we like, but unless we are listening for an answer, or a cue, or a very subtle, it can be movement, it can be a change in facial features, it can be little sounds that they make, it can be, coming back to the telepathy, when you’re listening for an answer, you can hear thoughts in your head. You can hear their telepathic thoughts, but in order to do that, you need to build up your own skills around your own thought awareness. So you know what thoughts are yours and what thoughts aren’t. When babies communicate with me, they don’t sound like the thoughts that are spinning around in my head but I’ve needed to learn, okay, what thoughts are going around in my head, how can I calm my thoughts so that I can receive their thoughts without them getting all caught up in my own. Look, that’s a skill, like any sort of form of communication and listening, it’s a skill that we need to learn and we need to develop.
So that’s something that I’ve come to do and teach other people to do as well, because we can all do it. Also too with the thought side of things, it’s being mindful of how my thoughts sounds because, and this is not to add more guilt or pressure onto you as a mother for your baby but also just being mindful that babies can read your energy, they understand, they can also hear your thoughts as well, and I know that kind of sounds a bit weird, but coming back to the telepathic side of things they will understand, for example, if you’re saying in your mind, I’m exhausted, and then someone asks you how you are, and you say you’re fine, that will be really confusing for babies because they can pick up that you’re exhausted yet you’re saying that you’re okay and that you’re fine. So I say to women it’s just about being a little bit more aware of your own thoughts and then also creating space too to listen for a response, whether that comes to you in thought, or whether that comes to you in some sort of nonverbal physical type response that babies will share, will communicate to you.
Helen Thompson: Yeah, that’s interesting. I was going to ask you about the thought process for a mom and about the energy that babies pick up. If a mom is stressed, the babies are going to pick that up and I was actually thinking that, when you then answered it. So that shows what telepathic things is for us but it’s the same for babies as well. Babies pick up on so, so much energy. I’ve experienced that in childcare. Some people just don’t respect the baby. They’ll be crying because they’re just overtired or overstimulated and I’ve just picked them up quietly and I’ve said, it’s okay, you’re fine, we’ve just checked your nappy, I’m going to give you a cuddle now and I’ll give you a quick feed and then I’m going to put you down to sleep. When I’ve explained that to a baby, I’ve really connected with them and most of my colleagues were absolutely horrified.
They said, oh, Helen, how did you do that? That baby was crying five minutes ago, uncontrollably, what did you do? I didn’t know at the time but I was doing exactly what you said. I was connecting with that baby at their level, their spiritual side. You and I are on the same page there. I’ve realized that I’ve been doing that all this time.
So we’ve talked about understanding the communication. I was thinking about the postpartum side of a mother who is stressed and is worked up and I’m talking about the birth and conception and then how the baby’s perspective is when they come into this world and before.
We all think that babies in the womb don’t get it. They’re just in the womb, they don’t hear and everything else but I don’t believe that. I believe that babies, when they’re in the womb, if you put music on your tummy, they’ll hear that. If you communicate with your baby when you’re in the womb and even just rubbing your tummy and saying oh, hi there, how are you doing. That’s all part of communicating with them before birth. So what’s your perspective on that when it comes to their soul and their insights Can you share a bit more about their experiences?
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah and again, I can only speak from what they’ve shared with me. I can’t say this is the same for absolutely everyone, but I always just like to say that because I never want to try to convince anyone of this is how it exactly is. In my experience, the soul always chooses to come to earth. Even the unplanned s planned on the bigger cosmic picture and also that babies choose their parents as well. I know for some of us here on Earth, that can be a hard pill to swallow. If we’ve had certain issues with our family and our parents, but again, talking from that soul perspective, which sometimes we do need to separate the soul and the human a little bit, because we are the humans having the experience, that 3d feet on the Earth experience, whereas the soul experience is a much more vast energetic, more cosmic puzzle, if you like, or picture. So, when babies are coming to Earth, yeah, they do choose their parents and because of that, they also know your issues, your beliefs, your patterns.
So, I really want to get this message across here that anything that you feel that you may be projecting onto your child or your own patterns, your own beliefs, all of these things, or worried that you’re going to mess them up in some way, it always brings women a lot of peace and comfort that their child came to them knowing those things already existed and that can help, yeah, just take that pressure off and that feeling of guilt.
Let’s face it, as women, especially mothers, there’s so much guilt out there and we don’t need more around that. The biggest thing that babies are asking for is just to have awareness. If your mom did something with you that you don’t agree with and you want to change, well, you’re already halfway there because there’s an awareness there, okay, that’s how she treated me or that’s what she projected onto me, I don’t want to project that onto my child. That in itself is huge and that’s often enough just to get the process going. I think too it’s also important to be aware that, if we look at the family tree a lot of these patterns and behaviors and beliefs, they’ve been ingrained over generations, and we’re not suddenly going to fix it in this generation.
It’s more about making small changes with how we parent and how we care for children, and then that’s going to continue in the subsequent or the upcoming generations as well. So, because I see time and time again, women putting so much pressure on themselves around this worry or this concern around what they’re projecting onto their children, but it’s about just making small shifts and small changes with your thoughts with your behaviors and even just circling back to thoughts and the telepathy that we’re talking about a moment ago, if going back to the example I gave with, you feeling tired and then someone asks you how you are and you say, I’m fine, if you just kept yourself in alignment with your thoughts, and if you’re feeling tired, and someone says, how are you today and you say, I’m feeling pretty tired today because babies get really confused when there’s a mismatch between the energy or the thought and the action.
Whereas what I’ve learned during my nursing career and as an example with the fatigue side of things, I had to do a lot of 12 hour shifts. Which is 7 p. m at night to 7 30 the next morning and I’m not at my best in this time, I am exhausted. Come 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and it’s exhausting because you have to be very mentally on the ball when caring for sick babies.
Helen Thompson: Also, as a parent as well, you have to be on the ball too, and I think that’s part of the stress that mothers have, isn’t it?
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah and I would say, look, I’m so exhausted. It’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m so tired. I’m doing the best I can for you at this time, but I’m exhausted. I would just be honest, and I would say this in my head, I wouldn’t necessarily say it out loud, or my colleagues around me would probably think I was crazy. What I felt in their energy is they would not take that on, cause that’s me owning my emotions and where I’m at. I’m not projecting it onto them. I’m just being honest and saying, hey, I’m exhausted and what I found is that babies were like, okay, they were very understanding of that.
Whereas if I went in and I was exhausted and I didn’t realize I was, and I was projecting it onto them and getting impatient with them or frustrated or they would pick up somehow that, oh, I’m fine, but I’m really not. Then it’s really confusing for them and my theory is that’s when babies start to take things on that aren’t actually theirs.
Whereas when we’re just clear and say, hey, I’m exhausted, I’m tired, even like I just need sleep right now, they can see that and they can respect that and they don’t absorb that because that’s a thing with babies, when they’re very young they absorb everything around them. If we own where we’re at then they don’t absorb that in my experience anyway. It also teaches us that, it’s okay for us to say, look, I’m exhausted right now. I don’t have to pretend I’m at 100 percent at 2 a. m. when I haven’t slept for 20 hours or something. So I just find babies really respect that. There’s no judgment there from them, they’re not expecting us to be something, we’re not, they’re not expecting us to be a hundred percent 24 7. They get that. So if we can just be honest about that, then I find it actually changes their energy and shifts their energy and as I said, no judgment from them.
Helen Thompson: Yeah, it’s interesting because if you express out loud, bringing it back to the mother, I know in your experience as a nurse, you couldn’t do it out loud, but as a mother, if your baby’s stressed and you say to them, look, I’m really tired right now, I understand that you’re tired too, and you want my attention, but can we just have a cuddle, have closeness together. As you say babies understand that and I think I’ve experienced that too. They do understand that if you express to them how you’re feeling It immediately calms their energy.
I’ve seen it myself. They think, okay, I need a feed but mom’s tired right now, she’s expressed how she feels, so she’s just giving me a cuddle and I’m okay with that because I know she’s tired and she’s giving me what I want. I think that’s a real key for moms to get. I think it’s important to have that awareness with babies and have that awareness with yourself, because if you express how you’re feeling it’s also teaching the baby to express how they’re feeling and we’re not putting our values on them, we’re just expressing how we feel. At the end of the day, you’re teaching your baby, exactly how to express themselves as well. You’re teaching each other.
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah, absolutely because I think when we’re not in alignment, or our thoughts and our energies and our words and our behaviors are not congruent with each other, babies pick up on that and they realize, oh, it’s not okay. I feel this is where a lot of the suppression comes in for us as adults, where most of us now are trying to be stronger and be better communicators and try to ask for what we want and feel our emotions and all of these things.
I just wonder if when we were babies, if things had been different then we would have learned that it’s okay from a much younger age to just be honest. We don’t want to spray our emotions over other people, but if we don’t have those role models, and this is no judgment to our parents at all, but it’s just an observation, if we have that permission early on, that it’s okay to be wherever we are, then I think that puts us in good stead as we grow up through our childhood years, our adolescence, and then as an adult. Having that compassion for other people as well, allowing other people to share honestly. As you said, it’s that role modeling that we can be for these babies, for this current generation that are coming to earth at this time.
Helen Thompson: It’s not just role modeling as if to role model what you want your baby to be. It’s role modeling how you’re feeling and how you’re experiencing life and giving them the option to think, Oh, okay, well, yes, I want to do that in my life or no I don’t. It’s giving them the opportunity to see one perspective, but it’s also giving them the opportunity to see your perspective as well. So then they can make their own judgment .
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah, absolutely. We’re giving them that choice as to what feels right for them. We’ve been sort of given one option or one point of view and they can sit with that and it’s like, okay, yes, that makes sense, I’m gonna do that too, or no, actually, I want to try it this way.
Helen Thompson: Yeah and that goes further up the ladder when they get to two, two and a half, and they’re going through their temper tantrum stage. I don’t believe every child, but children do have temper tantrums and I think it’s exactly what we’re talking about. It’s why they’re having temper tantrums because they’re trying to work out where they’re at in this world and where they want to go. They’re trying to understand, well, you’ve told me this, I don’t want to do this, so where’s the compromise?
They’re trying to work out their own boundaries and work out where they want to go. I think if they learn that early, I’m not going to say it’s less likely that they’ll have temper tantrums, but it’s less likely that they’ll have, huge temper tantrums because they will have understood it from an early age and they would have respected that you respect them and you respect each other.
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that. Cause with toddlers, a lot of it is about, they’re developing a deeper understanding of the world, but they don’t know what to do with that. As you said, they’re trying to figure out what works for them, what’s right for them and they’re also trying to communicate that as well. I find most toddlers are very frustrated because it’s like they understand more than what they can communicate verbally and there’s often, still learning language and stuff then, so it becomes a time of big frustration and adjustment for these two, three, four year olds.
Helen Thompson: Yeah, and if you’d spoken to them from an early age, as you said, if you’re picking them up, transitioning them from bed to bath or bath something else, if you’ve explained to them what you’re doing, even when you’re changing a nappy, they’re getting that language, they’re getting that understanding, they’re getting those words from an early age, so that when they get to the toddler age, they would have heard those words, they would have heard, Oh, mommy’s taking me out of the cot, she’s now putting me into the bath, so they would understand it a bit better.
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah, that’s the theory, and I think that’s the goal behind it all as well. Absolutely. It’s important that we recognize that babies have this wisdom within them, that they have their own journey here on earth. I always say that with babies, it’s like, mind me, but don’t own me. So there’s this sense of, we’re here to guide them, we’re here to support them, we’re here to help them learn the ways of the world, but we’re not here to control their journey or to You know, to have it all laid out for them. We’re here to support them on their own exploration. And that’s a concept that comes through very often that they’re not ours.
We don’t, we don’t own them. No soul has ownership over another soul. So, yeah, just to finish off that is important to remember and also to help lessen your own load as well and your responsibility. Cause I often find so many parents take on so much responsibility for their child when you’re in a support role. You are giving them an experience or an opportunity to live a life here on earth and you can do what you can do in guiding and supporting them but at the end of the day, they are on their own journey and they are autonomous beings that will carve their own path and make their own decisions.
I think the best thing we can do is set them up for that, to be autonomous, to be empowered, to be yeah, to be able to understand their own needs and what they want in the world and the rest is up to them. I mean, I know that’s very generalized, but yeah, just as a comment.
Helen Thompson: It’s not generalized and I’ll just finish by saying I agree totally with that because I think it’s important to encourage everybody, including ourselves, to take responsibility for our own actions.
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah.
Helen Thompson: If we’re teaching babies that, we’ve got to follow the route as well.
Lauren Dionysius: Yeah, absolutely.
Helen Thompson: How can my audience find out more about you or contact you?
Lauren Dionysius: If anyone is curious about the work that I do around baby soul communication, you can find me at my website, which is bornenergy.com. au. Also over on Instagram at bornenergy, where you’ll find my latest offers and the different services that I provide to help you to connect with your baby’s soul.
Helen Thompson: Well, thank you, Lauren, I’ve really enjoyed talking to you today. I could talk to you forever about this subject. I really appreciate you being here and I’ve enjoyed talking to you.
Lauren Dionysius: Thank you so much, Helen, it was lovely to be here.
Helen Thompson: Thank you for tuning in to this insightful episode of First Time Mum’s Chat. I hope you enjoyed learning from Lauren’s unique perspective on how babies communicate, and how we as parents and childminders can better connect with them. Whether it’s through energy, touch or simply being more mindful of our own emotions, there’s so much we can take away to enhance our parenting journey.
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